Incentive
by Hiril Moon
Summary: John doesn't skate. Ever. Bobby tries to change his mind while away from the mansion, with results neither of them expected. BobbyJohn slash.


**Warnings for Story:** Slash of the Bobby/John variety, pure fluff with no real plot, unnecessary longness for very simple concept, bad writing, author's first attempts at kisses and actual slash. Be afraid, be very afraid. Ooo, and cheesy title!

**Incentive**

"John. John!"

John groaned slightly as he turned over in bed in an attempt to get away from the repetitive pain in his back. True, it wasn't really proper pain, but it was irritating and that was enough.

"God, I bet Wolverine's easier to wake up than you. Get up already!"

The pattern disappeared for a moment, before changing from being focused on one point to his whole back being shoved hard enough to rock his body and send him dangerously close to the edge of the bed. As he flailed to get a secure handhold, he heard a familiar laugh. Now he knew who had woken him up.

"Bobby!" He batted the ice-mutant's hands away as they moved in to push him again. "I'm up, so leave me alone!"

His roommate sat back, trying hard to stop laughing. On seeing John's very best glare, the laughter escaped from him again. This time he couldn't stop, even after ducking several punches aimed at him.

"Sorry, John, but you can look completely hysterical someti—" He stopped abruptly when he was successfully kicked off the bed. Looking up, he saw the brunette glaring down at him, still partly wrapped in the duvet. _'Like some kind of bedbug,'_ he thought.

"What the hell do you want, Popsicle?" John's intended snarl was dimmed by the obviously tired tone. That possibly explained the unusual use of his old nickname for Bobby from about two years back.

The blonde wriggled carefully out of reach while he waited for the other mutant to properly wake up. _'Wonder why he never calls me that anymore. Probably thinks that it's too childish.'_ He smiled to himself, earning a sleepy confused look from the teenager on the bed. _'I wouldn't mind hearing it more often again.'_

Out loud, he said confidently, "Come on, get dressed. We're going outside."

"We're _what_?" There was a struggle as John tried to free himself from the tangled mass of bedding. "Are you insane? Why?"

Watching the mutant free himself at least, Bobby felt like he was the one in control for once. It was quite a giddy feeling, provoking him into playing with the brunette a little. "What, like you never sneak out back at the mansion?"

John looked up just in time to catch his clothes as his friend threw them before they hit his face. "Yeah, but this isn't the mansion and it's freezing out there. What's got you so hyped up anyway?"

Bobby grinned, gesturing at the clothes. "You're right, this isn't the mansion. That means that our whole class is actually asleep for once. Either that or having midnight feasts or something like that. There's nobody around."

A weary groan escaped the fire-mutant's lips as he realised that he had no choice except to simply go with the flow. His roommate wasn't usually particularly energetic, but the few times that he managed to gain the energy from somewhere, there was nothing in the world that could stop him. "So what? What's so important that you need everybody to be asleep?"

"You'll see. Now get dressed!" The scarily hyperactive blonde vanished out of the door, leaving John with his privacy. Not for the first time, he cursed his misfortune at being roomed with his friend on school trips as well as back at the mansion. Admittedly it was his own fault, since most students would rather attempt to wax Logan than share with a moody pyromaniac. Nevertheless, it was a situation he would prefer to have a break from sometimes.

Just as he was contemplating going back to sleep, the voice of his tormentor drifted through the partly-open door. "If it's going to take you this long, do you want me to come in and help?"

The idea of Bobby helping him to get changed made a blush appear on his face, whilst giving him enough motivation to roll out of bed and hastily pull his trousers on. He really didn't need to think about that right now. Especially when he was apparently at the mercy of the one in question without anybody else to save himself.

When he cautiously pushed the door open, he found the ice-mutant leaning against the railing opposite their room, holding John's boots in one hand and a mysterious grey canvas bag in the other. The boots' owner frowned as they were passed to him, looking at the bag with an uneasy mixture of curiosity and apprehension.

"Seriously, Popsicle, what are you playing at?" The nickname slipped out naturally before he could stop it. Luckily Bobby didn't seem to care, since his smile only widened as he waited for the boots to be pulled on.

"You'll find out soon enough," he replied slightly playfully, the smile twisting into something more like a smirk. John couldn't help involuntarily shivering at the expression. If his supposedly innocent do-gooder best friend was starting to act like him, then he, John, was in serious trouble.

* * *

A few minutes later, John was shivering again, this time from the cold. Despite it only being autumn, the side of the lake where the teachers had decided to take his class for the weekend was distinctly wintry. Most of the others might not have minded, but thanks to his power he tended to be a little more sensitive to temperatures. 

Pulling his jacket closer around him, he asked irritably, "So are you going to tell me what the hell's going on?"

Bobby was squatting down about a foot away from the lake's edge. At the sound of the other mutant's voice, he turned his head enough to look at him. He frowned slightly when he noticed his friend's obvious discomfort and threw the scarf he'd been wearing himself over to him. "Wear it, okay? I don't care if it's not cool, because it's about to get even colder and I don't want you dying of frostbite."

"Like I have any choice, hanging around with you and all," John muttered, reluctantly wrapping the scarf around his neck. Then his mind registered the implication of what Bobby had said. "Wait, why's it going to be colder? You bring me out here for some kind of power display?"

The ice-mutants' attention focused once more on the lake. "Partly." Breathing deeply like Miss Grey had taught all of them last summer, he reached out and lightly brushed the water with his fingers. Wherever his fingertips touched, small threads of ice appeared, spreading out and joining together to form larger and larger webs that moved outwards, filling themselves in as they grew. When there was a large enough circle in front of him, Bobby flattened his palm against the frozen water, sending his power out across the entire lake whilst simultaneously telling the ice which had already formed to thicken until it could safely support the two teenagers' combined weight.

John took a step back as a brief wind blew the inevitable chill right into his face. "Christ, and I thought you only did small things," he commented quietly, trying to sound casual. It was times like this when he remembered exactly how powerful his friend could be if he wanted.

The smile on Bobby's face when he looked at the brunette didn't make him feel any better. "Just one thing left to do."

Within seconds, John's sense of foreboding had both doubled and tripled. This was partly due to the ominous statement and partly because he was now handed the mysterious canvas bag which his roommate had refused to answer any questions about. It was surprisingly heavy, and whatever was in there made weird outlines in the material.

When he opened it up, at first he though that he was hallucinating. Unfortunately, the horribly familiar shapes refused to vanish, although they did start to connect to ice, and to a strangely excited friend of his… Slowly he looked up at the blonde by the frozen lake.

"Ice skates?"

"Good to know your eyes still work."

Images of dull horror started to flash through John's mind. Ice skates meant ice-skating, ice-skating meant willing going out onto the ice, which meant putting yourself basically at its mercy, which meant—

He was brought abruptly back to reality when a hand was waved in front of his face. While his eyes tried to focus again on anything except the scene in front of him, he heard a voice trying to convince him that craziness was good.

"Look, I know you can't skate, that's obvious. And for some reason you refuse to learn at the rink with everyone else, so really the only way you're ever going to be able to do it is if somebody teaches you somewhere else." Under any other circumstances Bobby's voice would have sounded calming and soothing. However, in this case, John could only hear a speech on voluntary insanity.

"Popsicle…" The nickname wasn't intended to try to soften the blonde up, no matter how it might have sounded. It simply tended to find its way out whenever John felt threatened. "I don't skate."

Bobby rolled his eyes. "I know, that's what I just said, idiot. Even though it's pretty much the same as roller blading, which you seem fine with."

It was a sign of the brunette's developing panic that he didn't rise to the insult. Instead, he only corrected him. "You said that I _can't_ skate. That's true, because I _don't_ skate. Ever."

"Jesus," Bobby muttered, reaching into the bag, which was still being held in the other mutant's limp grasp, and pulling out the skates. "If I'd known you were going to be such a baby about it—"

"What's so babyish?" John interrupted defensively. "It's asking to get hurt. Besides, fire and ice don't exactly mix, remember?"

There was no immediate retort to that comment. Instead Bobby raised an eyebrow, coolly regarding his friend. After a long silence, during which the John started to shift awkwardly from foot to foot, the skates were calmly held out towards him.

"We seem to get along well enough."

Ah, the eternal problem. John should have really seen this one coming. Every time he mentioned intolerance or even mild dislike for ice, snow or just being cold, his roommate would manage to connect it back to the two of them. Like people were the same as nature, or whatever.

"Look, it's either this or I drag you to the rink when we get back. And I'll let the girls do it. At least this way there's only one person watching."

'_Who, ironically enough, is the one person who I least want to see me falling over like an idiot.'_ John didn't say that out loud, although the idea had occurred to him briefly. It probably wasn't a great plan to tell his roommate that though. Sharing a room was awkward enough at the best of times.

The skates were pushed firmly into his hands whilst he was distracted, forcing him to drop the bag which they'd come from. As a last desperate attempt to get the frighteningly determined teenager to give it up, John pointed out, "Wait, you can't make me do anything out there. You haven't got any skates."

Bobby gave him a very unimpressed look as he sat down by the lake again. Raising first his left, then his right foot, he ran his hand underneath his shoes. Ice formed along the centre of the soles, thickening outwards to form blades in the same shapes that were on the bottom of the ice skates in John's hands.

The blonde didn't even bother turning around to talk as he put his feet down again. "Now just get them on before it's morning already."

Defeated. The brunette groaned quietly, and then moved to seat himself next to the other mutant. "I really hate you sometimes," he muttered, pulling off his boots and replacing them with the skates. "Where'd you get these anyway?"

"I borrowed them from the rink." The ice-mutant shrugged innocently as his friend gave him a disbelieving look. "What? Having a part-time job there has to have some perks."

A growl as John did up the laces. "I thought your _perks_," he paused to emphasise his distaste for the word, "were a discount and being able to use the place after-hours."

"Maybe I just never mentioned it to you." Before he could get a response, Bobby pushed himself up and stepped smoothly onto the ice. Spinning around to face his roommate, he grinned. "You're not scared, are you?"

'_Only because of how much you're acting like me.'_ Shaking his head, John cautiously inched forwards, easing himself along and up bit by bit. When Bobby held his hand out towards him, the brunette was surprised to find himself talking it. _'Oh, sure, he dragged me out here and now he's going to—'_ The thought cut off the second that the blonde let go, without doing anything even remotely close to the tricks that he'd been expecting.

"Okay then…" John said slowly, scared to move a single muscle. The chill rising up off the ice made him want to wrap his arms around himself, but he was much more scared of falling over than he was of being cold. Which was surprising, since he'd always written off the cold as his number one fear. "Now what?"

Bobby moved slightly closer, gliding like he'd been skating all his life. Then again, quite possibly he had. They didn't talk about growing up, after all.

"Before I do this, I want you to know that this isn't the reason I dragged you out here. It's necessary, that's all." The blonde looked sheepish as he said that, setting of Johns' warning alarms.

"What are you—Gah!" The question was cut off by a yell of surprise as Bobby suddenly reached out and shoved his shoulder. For a moment he hung at a bizarre angle, arms windmilling like some kind of cartoon character, before gravity won and he fell over onto his back.

"Ow!" He tried to sit up, but the hand he put out to steady himself slipped away suddenly, dumping him back onto the ice. "Popsicle, what the hell—"

Instinctively, Bobby tuned out the next few sentences. Knowing John, he was using every curse and swearword that he knew, plus some that he'd made up himself. At least, that was what the blonde was expecting. This was the part he hadn't been looking forward too.

When he'd guessed that his friend had started to calm down slightly, he quickly came in with his defence. "Look, everybody falls over at some point, that's natural. This way you've already fallen over once, so you'll be much less scared of it happening."

"You could've warned me!" John spat out, struggling to stand up again.

Bobby snorted, crouching down carefully to offer his help. "Yeah, like you would've let me if I'd told you what I was going to do."

This time his hands were ignored as the brunette finally managed to sit up. "For a good reason. It feels like I bloody broke my back!"

"Trust me," Bobby told him, grabbing his arms and helping to pull him to his feet before he could object. "If you'd broken your back, you wouldn't be able to move."

John backed away as soon as he was properly standing again. "That's some pep talk there, Popsicle," he commented sarcastically. "Now leave me alone, I'm going back to get some sleep."

He turned away towards the shore. Before he realised what was happening, his left foot slipped straight out from underneath him into the air, leaving the rest of his body falling backwards, and back towards the very hard and very painful ice…

Just as he was bracing himself for the inevitable pain, two arms appeared underneath his own, wrapping around his chest and catching him. The fire-mutant stared in a slightly surprised way at his offending foot, then his gaze moved up. He tilted his head back until it impacted softly against a chest and his vision was filled by Bobby grinning down at him.

"Looks like you're going to have to learn a little bit, just to get back." Usually John would have accused him of trying not to laugh at him, but instead he found himself drawn to the other mutant's eyes. They were staring intently down at him, reflecting the ice which they were both somehow standing, and for once John couldn't see any humour in them. That in itself was pretty strange.

"Half an hour, okay?" The blonde's words seemed to be coming from a long way away. "That's all, and then we can go back."

John nodded dumbly, finding it hard to look away from those blue eyes. How come he'd never particularly noticed them before? Especially since now they seemed to drawing him in, holding him place, so that he couldn't move or even look away.

Abruptly he was wrenched away as Bobby heaved him upright. He quickly to a step back, somehow avoiding falling over, and shook his head as if trying to get something out of it, blinking hard in an attempt to focus. _'What the hell was that about?'_

His head snapped up as he heard the sound of his roommate skating closer to him. "Hey, are you alright? You didn't hit your head or anything?" He sounded much more concerned now than before, John noticed.

The brunette resisted the urge to lean back even slightly and simply waved his hands in front of himself as an alternative to keep the two of them apart. "I'm fine, really. I just felt kinda weird." At the confused look, he improvised a (fortunately true) response. "I hate the cold, remember?"

"You hate _being_ cold. There's a difference." Bobby had an infuriating habit of noticing those little details every now and again. Judging from earlier, this really wasn't a night to say the first thing that came into his head.

Repressing an urge to move again, this time to cross his arms, John retorted, "Whatever, like it matters. Get on with it."

Rather than looking annoyed at the tone of voice, the blonde smiled in a more mysterious way than before. "So you want to do it now?"

It was only thanks to the lowered temperature and a face that was steadily growing numb that John suppressed a blush at the phrase. For a second there, he'd honestly though that doing it hadn't meant ice-skating, but something else altogether. _'God, mind out of the gutter already! Come on, you didn't actually hit your head!'_

"Popsicle, can we just skip all the sad word games?" he blurted out, trying to cover up the thoughts. "I'm cold, I'm tired, and I'm really starting to run out of patience here."

"Okay, okay," Bobby muttered, apparently giving up on something. There was more to it than met the eye, John realised, since there was a strange glint in the ice-mutant's eyes that refused to go away. Just what was he planning here?

Nothing too strange happened in the next few minutes though, or at least nothing out of place for two teenagers. Bobby announced several times that he'd always thought that nobody could fall over as much as the brunette within such a short space of time. Every time, John growled sarcastically back that he was overjoyed to keeping his friend's mind open.

After John's tenth fall (or possibly twentieth, they were all starting to blur together), he didn't get up again. Skating over to check the damage, the other mutant couldn't see him moving, and a dull panic slowly dawned on him. "Hey, are you okay?"

"I'm fine." The pyromaniac's voice sounded muffled, as if he was speaking from a long away. In fact the only difference was that the scarf around his neck had managed to slip free and across his face, yet the effect was the same.

Bobby waited for a little while longer, and then observed, "You seem to be just lying there."

"Oh, and that's such a strange reaction?" With each fall, the level of sarcasm in John's voice rose. By this point, it was approaching potentially deadly levels. "Because clearly somebody who's been doing nothing but fall over for the last five minutes couldn't possibly want to stay still."

He tilted his head enough to direct a particularly hate-filled glare at his friend. "Look, every part of me that isn't numb hurts. Why can't I just go back to bed?" If that last sentence sounded whiny, he didn't care. If whining got him away from this frozen death-trap, then so be it.

A scraping sound next to his head indicated Bobby moving next to him. Looking to his left, he saw the blonde squatting down next to him, a thoughtful expression on his face. That couldn't be good.

Neither of them said anything for a moment. The silence stretched out, only broken when Bobby finally sighed and sat back, carefully sliding his skates out and away so that they didn't accidentally slice any part of John's body. "Maybe you just need the right motivation."

John rolled his eyes. "Of course, what else?" Lifting up his head slightly, he moved his arms around so that his hands joined underneath it and generally assumed a more comfortable position. Refusing to do something was always much easier when you didn't feel like you had to move.

"You know what?" he continued with a challenging expression. "You're completely right, Popsicle." He was extra careful to emphasise the sarcasm here. It was too easy for his friend to pretend that he'd meant it literally. "It has always been my secret desire—" Damn, he'd meant to say dream there "—to become a wonderfully masculine medal-winning ice skater." He switched over to his Stereotypical Five Year Old Girl voice. "And then I'll be the prettiest princess at school."

Unusually, Bobby didn't take the bait. In fact, if it wasn't for the fact that he remembered saying the words, John would have thought that nothing had happened at all.

"Hey!" The pyromaniac never reacted well to being ignored. "Are you actually on this planet?"

Slowly, the blonde murmured, almost to himself, "Maybe motivation is the wrong word. Maybe I mean incentive."

"That's the same thing, idiot." The insult conveniently covered up how freaked out John was becoming. What was wrong with his friend anyway? Had the Professor put him up to this or was he just ill?

Bobby shook his head, barely listening to the exact sentence. "Motivation is the reason why you do something. Incentive's what influences you to do it." The vague definitions came out dreamily, as if they'd somehow bypassed his mind and escaped of their own accord.

John let his head turn away from trying to watch the ice-mutant's expression, instead staring up into the night sky. "Great, I'm trapped on a frozen lake with Captain Dictionary. Perfect time to change powers, Popsicle."

Luckily for his roommate's sanity, Bobby's voice sounded more focused when he responded logically, "If I'd changed powers, we'd be trying to swim in freezing cold water right about now." John could hear a much more familiar teasing laugh. "How else do you think this is all intact after you've been falling over so much? Doesn't help that you're hotter than most people too."

'_Don't blush. Whatever you do, don't blush,'_ John thought frantically. Just like before with the phrase do it, his mind had managed to interpret that comment as something completely unrelated to powers. When they got back to the mansion, he was going to have his head checked. Maybe he'd even have a mind scan, if the Professor promised not to fiddle with anything in there.

While he was off in his strangely perverted world, Bobby was watching him intently. Seeing the brunette's eyes flicker from side to side, clearly trying to focus on anything except the only other mutant out on the ice (perhaps one of these days he would tell his friend that this gave him away every time), an idea suddenly occurred to me. Or at least an idea that he'd discussed before as a possibility.

This could be a lot more fun than he'd ever thought before.

"I've got it," he announced out loud, carefully clearing his face of the decidedly evil grin that had spread across it. After all, the main hope was to catch the target off-guard.

Said target's attempts at sounding nonchalant were amusing enough to make him wonder how much plotting was actually necessary. "Got what? No brain? Pneumonia?"

There wasn't really any point in even bothering to deny those, it was obvious what the answers were. Bobby simply dismissed them and pressed on. "The incentive. Maybe if I give you something every time you manage something skating, you'll get better. Or at least you'll try harder."

John was clearly not expecting this suggestion, since he sat up suddenly to stare at his roommate. For once, he didn't immediately fall back down again. That seemed to imply that this scheme would really work.

"You serious" He tried to suppress the surprised look in his eyes and reverted back to sarcasm to cover it up. "What am I, an eight year old?"

"If you're going to act like one, yes," Bobby growled back, sounding surprisingly menacing.

Damn, that was a good point. John needed a comeback. Either that or change the subject. "What the hell's good enough to put up with an icy hell anyway?" Change of subject it was. "I seriously doubt you have enough money to pay me, or else you wouldn't have to work at that stupid rink in the first place, and you'll be buying me lunch for the next thousand years if you try it that way." Unexpectedly, victory had come surprisingly close to hand. "Face it, nothing's worth doing this."

Bobby didn't immediately contradict him, which could either be good or bad. Good if he was considering surrendering; bad because, tonight, silence seemed to mean that he was plotting something.

John didn't trust the look in his friend's eyes. The reflections of the moon and the ice covered up most of the emotion that was usually visible, and the situation of being surrounded by ice and cold brought home to him the fact that he really was in Iceman's element.

He flushed slightly as Bobby leant in nearer to him, bringing their heads closer together. Just like when John had been caught before, the blonde's eyes seemed to be all he could see. The pale cold light from the sky and the lake made him move forwards slightly to try and see the blue behind them, but it still stayed hidden.

Suddenly those eyes drew closer still and John felt something against his lips. As the lids in front of him slid shut, he realised what it was.

Bobby.

Bobby was…

_The bizarre sensation of slight frost pressing against defiant warmth; an instinctive surge from both sides in reaction to each other; a faint hiss of steam that drifted away, surround them—_

…kissing him?

A choke interrupted the sensation before he could really take it in as the air inside him rebelled. Bobby pulled back slightly, and a blush really did appear on John's face this time when he realised that for a moment there he'd forgotten to breathe.

It had lasted scarcely ten seconds, yet now John found that it was impossible to think of anything else as it replayed itself in his mind time after time. What was going on here? _'Did…Did…'_ His thoughts were only slightly more coherent than his voice, and that was only because nothing at all was coming out of his mouth as it opened and shut idiotically.

His friend had remained at the same distance, less than an inch away, and John found himself leaning carefully forwards, anxious to know if it had really happened, wanting to know if he had just imagined it.

A harsh scraping sound cut through his confused mass of thoughts, bringing him back to himself. _'Bloody hell, was I about to…'_ His mind refused to finish the question for him, yet he knew perfectly well what the answer was. _'What the hell is wrong with me?'_

Another sound caught his attention as Bobby pulled himself to his feet. "Well? You think that'll work?"

Wait just a second. "What?" A quick mental backtrack to before – his mind went slightly fuzzy at the memory – didn't come up with an encouraging meaning. "You mean the – the – " He gestured helplessly at his mouth. "—what you just did was your _incentive_?"

"Wasn't that great, I know, but what good's an incentive if you've already had the best part?" The words sounded so calm, so unemotional, considering what he was talking about. Coming from John, they might have sounded normal enough, but from the Professor's perfect student? There had even been a small flicker of a suggestive smile at the end. Did ice-skating always have this effect on him? Wouldn't the girls have said something about it?

The girls. John clung onto that thought like a desperate survivor in a storm with a piece of driftwood. "What about—" He stopped and breathed deeply, attempting to calm his heart rate down. Why was it so fast? He exhaled and tried again, slower this time. "What about Rogue?"

Bobby looked down at him blankly. "Marie? What about her?"

Had he missed something along the line? "Isn't she still your girlfriend? Or did you break up with her and just not tell me?" If the answer was the latter, then it looked like there were bigger issues here than being trapped on a large patch of ice.

The blonde looked up at the sky, starting to look more than a bit impatient. "John, I'm trying to teach you how to ice-skate here. Can we just focus on that?"

"What?" The word came out without him meaning to, showing his shock. Was his friend really avoiding the question? "Popsicle—"

"Look," Bobby interrupted, bending forwards to hold out both of his hands. "Is that going to be enough to get you to do this, or do I have to come up with something else?"

John was pretty certain that he was supposed to demand something else, as well as refusing to speak to his friend ever again, but what his mouth said was, "Sure, if you want." A horror-filled look crossed his face when he realised how that had sounded (embarrassed and, worse still, willing), before he quickly added, "Whatever." That sounded a little off too, so he went on lamely with, "I don't care."

"_Sure, if you want." "Whatever." "I don't care."_ He sounded like a panicked teenage girl after her first kiss. Which was only right age-wise, and still insulting at that. Although maybe emotionally too. _'Shut up!'_ Now his thoughts were mocking him as well. Good thing the telepaths were all supposed to be asleep.

A small, secretive smile was Bobby's only reaction to the collection of phrases. John decided that from now on he was going to keep his friend as far away from these sorts of situations as possible, or at least whenever they were together. Seeing a more calculative (almost predatory?) side to the blonde was slowly becoming terrifying.

Somehow the brunette managed to be pulled to his feet without immediately falling back down again, though maybe that was due to continued shock from whatever had happened before. The same explanation could apply to afterwards, when he actually completed a few basic steps, albeit with Bobby travelling alongside him, constantly telling him how to keep it up.

It didn't seem quite so bad anymore. _'At least Popsicle wasn't lying about the roller blading thing before.'_ For the first time since he'd been woken up, the fire-mutant smiled briefly. _'Looks like I won't need that incentive again after all. Too bad.'_ It was only after the thought had crossed his mind that he really registered what he was thinking. _'No, that's good! It's good!' _He pushed forward in an attempt to leave it behind.

In the days to come, he couldn't be certain whether it was because he'd used up as much luck as he had on the ice or whether it was in reaction to the unexpected thought. He would never truly know, yet the fact remained that when his right leg slid forwards in the rhythm it was being coached through, it simply carried on in an arc up from the ice. Without its support, his left leg twisted and brought the rest of him down. On the ice again.

"And you were doing so well too."

John glared up at the speaker. "You don't have to sound so – so – " For some reason the word he wanted refused to come and he had to settle for, "patronising."

"I was just saying," Bobby said innocently, crossing his arms. "You did better than before, but you still didn't make it that far."

"I went far enough." The blonde couldn't help reflecting that ice-skating wasn't exactly bringing out John's best side. Judging by that comment alone, it was more encouraging his sulky young girl side. "What more do you want?"

He had to laugh at that, even if it was only softly. "Just what we agreed to, remember? Half an hour. We've had about fifteen minutes, maximum."

"Who cares?"

"_I_ care." Without even waiting for the brunette to refuse to get up, Bobby bent down sufficiently to take a firm hold and yank him to his feet. He on while his friend tried to regain his balance, then refused to let go when the other mutant started to pull away.

John gave him a weary look. "What now? A slap?" He sighed, slightly insultingly. "Look, I managed a little way, I don't see why—"

The end of his sentence vanished into the air as Bobby cut him off, silencing his lips with his own. Unlike before, where there had been build-up and tension, this kiss was short and almost impatient. There was a sense that the blonde was getting tired of waiting, and not just for the skating.

Something in that annoyance called out to John without him realising it. He found himself pressing back against his friend, responding to the feeling and somehow trying to calm it. As opposed to his confusion last time, he felt more as if he could follow this, even join in however he liked.

Unfortunately for him, barely seconds after the kiss had started, it was over again. Once more Bobby was the one who ended it, pulling away as abruptly as he had initiated it. After a moment's bewilderment, assessing the sudden change, John found himself leaning forwards again, but his mouth was quickly covered by a hand.

"You managed something, so you get something," Bobby explained, keeping it in place. "But you only managed a little, so you only get a little. Got it?"

When he removed his hand, it revealed John's mouth opened slightly. It was only after he had started to move away that any sound came out at all. "Wait, what the hell are you doing? Is this some kind of weird game you invented?"

"Ice-skating?" It was hard to tell exactly how much Bobby was telling the truth and how much the apparent honesty was faked. John knew from experience that his friend was very good at making people believe what he wanted. John included.

His fists clenched, mainly as a reflex. "You know what I mean, Popsicle. Are you just playing with me?"

The other's eyes stared coolly back at him. "Do you want me to be?"

The level tone, the apparent lack of emotion… It was all frustrating for John at a level he'd never expected. "I don't know!" he yelled, shoving the blonde away from him. "I don't know what you're doing!"

"Yes, you do." Despite the outburst, Bobby's voice remained steady. Of course, he had always been much better at controlling his emotions, to an extent that sometimes his friend wondered if he had any. "You can see what I'm doing, John, you just keep asking me why."

"Then why don't you answer the bloody question?"

"Why don't you tell me what you want the answer to be?"

John gaped at him for a moment, the anger momentarily checked by his disbelief. When he spoke again, it was in a much quieter voice. "What _I_ want?"

"Think about it, okay?" Bobby smiled, letting his face show some comfort through the mask he was putting on. "Now, aren't we supposed to be doing something else?" He pushed himself effortlessly to his feet. "Come on then."

The following minutes passed by in a bit of a blur for John. The unexpected question kept coming back to him, repeating itself in his head like a particularly persistent echo, distracting him from what he was doing. In a way that somehow helped, since he seemed to be falling less. It was as if by setting his mind on something else, his body was finally doing what it was supposed to.

Still, the small improvement didn't seem to be good enough for the subject of his thoughts. After a few attempts, John was stopped from moving again by the blonde suddenly skating in front of him, spinning to face him.

Unable to stop in time, he started to topple forwards, only to be halted by Bobby putting out both hands to steady him. When he straightened up once more, the hands were removed, and then held out towards him.

John looked at them in confusion. "What?"

"It's to stop you falling so much." Without asking, Bobby reached further and grabbed his roommate's hands in his own. "Trust me, okay?"

Not bothering to wait for an answer, he started to move, skating backwards. John was about to make some sort of objection when his arms went taut and he began to be pulled along, slowly at first but steadily building up speed. He momentarily considered trying to slip out of his friend's grasp, but he dismissed that thought. At least this way he didn't have to work so much. Instead, he shifted his hands to be able to get his own grip.

Bobby smirked at him. "You know, you do have to do some work. Or else I'll just let go."

The comment was reassuringly normal, causing John to reply as casually as if there was nothing unusual going on. "Should've known you weren't willing to do it all for me."

"You know me. I hate giving free rides."

John could feel himself relaxing into the rhythm now. Not just the steady left-foot-right-foot movement which Bobby was trying to drill into him, but also the familiar shape of the conversation. For pretty much the first time since he'd been woken up, the world seemed to be behaving in the way that he usually expected. Or at least his friend was.

"Looks like it's not that bad after all," Bobby said quietly, his voice causing a break in the musings and a brief stumble in John's step.

"What isn't?"

"The ice-skating." Bobby's thoughtful expression briefly shifted into a small smile. "You're actually smiling. Not to mention this is the longest you've ever gone without falling over."

For some reason, the smile made John feel embarrassed rather than encouraged. "Yeah, well..." he muttered, trying to think of a response that wouldn't make him sound like an idiot. "It's because you're holding me up." Which definitely came out differently to what he'd meant.

Still, it was almost worth it to see the look of surprise on Bobby's face. Then it slowly faded into an almost pleased, closer to teasing, grin. "Oh, really?"

Without warning, he let go of John's hands. Not exactly expecting this, the brunette carried on for several steps before he really registered that he was trying to hold onto air. Instinctively, he reached out further, leaning forwards.

Of course, the inevitable followed. The world slipped away from under him, spinning around like a circus ride. The ice loomed up in front of him again, but this time on the way down he met with something else first. Whatever it was, it wasn't designed for support, since it fell down with him, conveniently collapsing enough under him to act as a cushion for his head.

The impact was distinctly softer this time. It was warmer too, which was welcome, but obviously nowhere near as warm as himself. It was also cooler than most normal people. In fact, about the same temperature as something he'd felt recently. Very recently, now that he thought about it... Slowly, almost dreading what he would see, he lifted his head.

Bobby glared at him across his chest, the bottom half of which was being used so naturally by John. "Comfortable?" he asked, his voice as icy as his powers.

Unsure of what to say, the brunette tried a smile. "It's better than the ice again."

His friend didn't look impressed. "Just get off me." A moment later, he sat up, causing John to slide off.

Instead of the annoyed reaction that this would normally provoke, tonight or any tonight, Bobby was surprised and more than a little worried to see the smile spreading across the fire-mutant's face. "Er...What did I miss?"

"And you were doing so well," John quoted, pushing himself up to eye-level with his roommate. "Too bad, Popsicle."

The triumphant expression was starting to approach frightening. Bobby could have sworn that just a few minutes ago he'd been the one in control. How was it that his friend could always turn everything around like this?

The smile wasn't simply an act. John could feel a bizarre sense of victory, like he was actually playing some sort of game. Maybe he'd somehow managed to break into the blonde's mysterious plan for the night. That might explain the slightly giddy feeling in his head, or whatever he was feeling somewhere else.

"What are you doing?" Bobby's voice was wary, nearly scared. He tried to edge away, then stopped abruptly when John suddenly slid forwards so that their faces were barely inches apart. He could feel John's breath slowly gusting out onto him, far warmer than anything he'd normally expect out here, feeling weird but pleasant as it brushed across his face. He could hear the strangely erratic sound of his own breathing as well.

"Nothing that you haven't already done," the brunette replied, not really reassuringly. Bobby stifled a gasp as a sudden wisp of his friend's breath somehow slip into his mouth, and realised at some point his lips had parted enough to let it in. As if in a trance, he watched his own cloud  interesting, normally his breath didn't show  partly escape in the opposite direction.

It had all become so intimate now, not at all like before. When he'd given his friend his incentive, it had mainly been spontaneous. What build-up there had been was nothing compared to this closeness. And nothing was the right word, when he thought back to then. It seemed like nothing when there was this experience happening right at this moment.

The sensation of a hand brushing against his hair made him focus again on the physical world. He realised that John had reached out without his noticing and gained a light grip on the back of his head. His normal reflex in sort of situation (only obviously not quite like this) was to pull away or grab a lock of brown hair as a hostage, but this time he found himself simply relaxing into the touch.

"Popsicle." Their mouths were close enough for Bobby to feel the nickname as it was said. More words might have followed, and from the movements he guessed that they did, yet he didn't hear any of them. The sensation of how close they were made his head spin.

He tried to say something, do something. There was no response from his own body, but maybe somewhere in his messed-up gene pool there was a hint of telepathy, since John's hand moved further around his head, gaining more control. The sounds around them faded into silence as the air filled with anticipation.

Just before Bobby thought he was going to have to do something drastic, John swiftly closed the tantalising gap between them.

Initially that was all it was, a sudden movement and a small, chaste kiss on the lips. However, within seconds it had deepened, both of them trying to move closer together. John's other hand gripped his friend's shoulder, while Bobby reached out to grab handholds of the brunette's trademark jacket.

His mouth was already open, but it was still a jolt for Bobby when he felt something slip inside. The shock was only temporary though, as he responded without thinking. It was further than he'd ever managed with Rogue, mainly because by this stage he was normally only half-conscious, yet he somehow knew exactly what to do. It was almost as if John was coaxing the knowledge out of him, instead of teaching him the motions.

When the two of them talked about it later, neither was sure how long it had lasted. They knew that it couldn't have been for long, because they hadn't collapsed from oxygen depravation. Nevertheless, they both agreed that it had seemed like much longer.

Either way, they were disappointed when it finished. John, surprisingly, was the one who ended it, pulling away enough to draw in a deep, shuddering breath. A small groan escaped Bobby before he could stop it, making him sound like a child being told to leave somewhere. The sense of abandonment was the same, when he thought about it.

John chuckled softly, tilting his head so that his forehead rested against his friend's. "Well, that was interesting."

Bobby laughed too, more out of relief and surprise. "What was that for?"

"You didn't like it?" John's voice was calm, with a hint of mockery, probably because he already knew the answer. The blonde's reaction seemed to have shown his real emotions quite clearly.

The response was exactly as he'd expected. "I never said that." That translated as Yes, I did like it. "I just meant why you did it."

"Same reason as you." Looking up, Bobby saw his roommate's smile widen. "I thought you needed the incentive."

"I can skate fine, John. I don't need anything to help me." There was a trace of annoyance there, possibly at the sudden change in what was happening.

Reluctantly, the brunette pulled away, sliding back on the ice to open up the space between them. "Then how come you still fell?" Before the guaranteed response pointing his own responsibility, he quickly added, "Besides, who said I was talking about skating?"

Bobby blushed, a rare event considering how cold he usually was. Not just in the physical sense either. To try and distract himself, he glanced at his watch. "You know, we've still got five minutes left."

The playful tone of the words indicated that John was finally enjoying himself, although not for the reasons that Bobby would have preferred. "Now, how are we going to spend that treasured time?"

"Stop it." He tried to sound firm, though a shake betrayed his real thoughts. "I'm not letting you go back until you manage to stay upright for more than ten seconds." At his friend's look, he added sharply, "_Without_ me."

John sighed, attempting to stand up. "You can be just like the teachers when you want to be, Popsicle."

"Try digging on of your blades into the ice first. It stops your foot sliding away," Bobby instructed automatically, rising to his feet in one fluid movement. "And you treat me like a teacher half the time."

"Only half," John pointed out, finally struggling up. "The rest of the time…" He trailed off, his expression more than enough to show what he was thinking.

A smile threatened to make its way into Bobby's face. He fought it down, turning away a little. "Save it, okay? We're going back soon."

"I can hardly wait." At the blonde's partly bewildered, partly worried look, John suppressed another laugh as he pressed further. "You're still stuck with me when we get back, you know. I need to get you back for waking me up to do this."

"You wish this hadn't happened?" Bobby asked, holding out his hand again. Despite what he had said earlier, he didn't think it was time for his friend to do this by himself.

"No," John said stubbornly, taking the outstretched hand without even considering it. "Went quite well actually."

"You fell over…a lot."

"I didn't mean just that." He gave his roommate a significant look. "But I like sleeping too much for you to go around doing what you like."

"Something I should look forward to?" the blonde asked sarcastically.

"You could say that."

The two of them exchanged grins. Then Bobby pushed off with one foot and led them out across the ice.

"Nice incentive by the way, Popsicle."

"Thanks. The girls thought of it."

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Right, so when I say I'll have something up by the end of the year (thinking I'll have managed it by Christmas), I actually mean about 5 days into the New Year. Worth keeping in mind, I guess. 

The worst part is that I actually wrote this back at the end of the summer. Yes, it took me that long to type up. First I typed this instead of ADD, then did ADD, then didn't really come back for ages. This is how I live my life. Depressing, yet it works, so long as nobody chases me with pointy knives and pitchforks for it. …Please?

I realise there isn't a whole lot to this story when you consider its UNBELIEVABLE LONGNESS (17 pages! 38 in A5!). That's mainly because I did it out of necessity. Specifically, I needed to see if I can actually write kisses, and get practice at the same time. After all, ADD's reaching that stage, and I have three main problems:

1) I have never written a gay kiss.

2) The only kind of kiss I've ever written was just 'oh look, their lips touched, yay'.

3) That was over five years ago.

Hopefully this wasn't that bad from that perspective. Tried three types: Weird 'let's avoid the action and do the symbolism'; really quick; and some attempt at description. Any feelings?

Oh well, hope you guys enjoyed it either way. Review please! It may motivate me to get back to ADD… Or any other writing. Ooo, and I did a short story (sort of)! Look at that! #is way too happy for such a small thing# And my very first bit of properly written slash! I shall frame it and put it up! …Where my parents can't see it.

(Writing pure fluff is weird)


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